After traveling along the Southeastern US coastline for the first few months of the year, we parked the RV for a while and went to explore the faraway world of the Galapagos Islands. We lived the month of May there, celebrating a couple of major life milestones. The overused tagline “a trip of a lifetime” felt very true for this magical place.
I’ll take you through our itinerary in my next travel blog, but I wanted to first speak observationally of this experience. The history of Galapagos is very interesting. Most of us hear a lot about Darwin but less about the islands themselves. There are four inhabited islands but many more that are only inhabited by animals and the distances between the islands can be shockingly far apart. This area is very close to the Equator, so the temperature is often hot. Imagine a swelting August day in Baltimore, Maryland, and you’re almost there. Most days, we ended up with a short shower after building up a mix of sweat, suntan lotion, and bug spray all day long. As you might imagine, water is an especially endangered resource due to the landscape and remote location. Most water supplies arrive on a boat, and you can’t drink from the faucets. Also, sewer systems are delicate. Don’t travel to Galapagos if it seems too icky to follow the local rule of not flushing any toilet paper.
Ecuador is working on conservation efforts to help protect this unique environment. That said, there are many threats and people who don’t follow the rules. Each island has a conservation and preservation center for tortoises. Most places require a tour guide to keep tourists from interfering with the environment. You are not allowed to get within six feet of the animals, but there’s nothing preventing them from coming right to you.
I found the Galapagos Islands scenery surprisingly like the Hawaiian Islands, though it shouldn’t have been a shock since both areas were created by volcanic activity. I will share similarities where noticed. One major difference was the water visibility. I’ve seen clarity of 100 feet in Hawaii, but in the Galapagos in May, the water was somewhat murky. You would think that since they are in remote parts of the Pacific Ocean that the water clarity would be great in both places. However, the Galapagos Islands are at the convergence of three currents (Panama Flow, Humboldt, and Cromwell Currents), which makes the water more turbulent.
In terms of scenery, the landscape was unique in the islands, where practically every type of flora and fauna had one type named Darwin. Overall, there were pretty sunsets, but none as colorful and clear as in Hawaii. Though the cities were different from the islands, each place had a “malecon,” essentially a boardwalk or showcase of scenery along the waterfront in the center of the action.
The animal encounters are like nothing I have ever experienced (and I’ve petted a tiger and dove with sharks). We saw a variety of animals, including blue-footed boobies, tiny seahorses, flamingos, and so many marine iguanas. In fact, you have to be cautious not to step on one by accident. Sea lions lazed about the street and benches. And it was amazing to see examples of adaptation in real life. Each finch had a slightly different feature because of its environment. You’ve never seen so many turtles! There, they call turtles that live on land tortoises. On one island, there were seven distinct types of tortoises because the landscape was so varied. Each one had adapted to its unique setting. There are also enormous sea turtles and even a penguin. The only tropical one in the world.
One of the most unique experiences we had was having a mother and child sea lion waddle over to us from 50 feet away. We were lying in hammocks on the beach at the main waterfront, and they made a beeline toward us. I started to get nervous because they were getting so close. Jason calmed me down, and the next thing you know, the mother was nursing her baby right underneath us. Her flipper even slapped my butt a few times. We were captive since the only way to exit the hammocks would cause us to step on them. We didn’t have any phones with us in the hammock, so I asked someone who walked by if they would take a picture and text it to us. Thankfully, they did, though it literally took days to see it because the internet was so bad there.
We were lucky to have a few more close encounters with animals. On the island of San Cristobal, a favorite snorkeling spot offered us regular interactions with a group of sea lions who lived in Darwin Bay. They ranged in size from very big to small. One day, a baby playfully splashed Jason in the face, and the same one blew water into my mask to get my attention. On another day, a large sea lion bared her teeth at Jason in close range, but nothing came of it.
I’ll end with two memories from the same place. On the island of Isabela, there is a great snorkeling spot called Concha Perla. It’s a protected, mangrove lined large “pool” that has amazing snorkeling that we experienced many times in both tidal extremes (low tide is key). We saw marine iguanas, sea lions, rays, and baby sharks alongside schools of fish and huge starfish. This place is embedded into my memory for two reasons. First, we had the best homemade empanadas ever at the food stand at the entrance to this snorkeling area. The second will take another paragraph.
Besides tasty treats, Jason and I had a memorable lifesaving moment there. Normally, there are ropes with buoys creating a boundary on two sides of Concha Perla. One of the first times we visited this spot, one of the ropes was gone. As Jason and I were happily gliding along the water, we both suddenly realized that it was so effortless because we were being sucked by the outgoing tide to that very opening. We came to a narrow area where Jason grabbed onto a rock. As I uselessly tried to swim into the current, Jason held out his hand, and I was able to grab it. We decided to let go and floated to a bigger rock with less current and waited for the tide to slacken. Once it let up, we were able to safely re-enter the snorkeling area. As it turned out, we met many couples who suffered the same fate. Thankfully, by our last day there, the rope had been put back up.
In my next blog, I’ll take you through the itinerary of our trip to Ecuador and the Galapagos Islands. Until then, have a happy holiday season.
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